Baby’s First Christmas!

I’m kind of late for this link up, so I think it’s closed now, but I’m doing it anyway!  It’s been a busy week, and I didn’t get on the computer much.  I have been going to bed way too late, and even now it’s 12:15am, but I am posting this, even though I should be sleeping.  This will also be a very photo heavy post!

I’ll start by talking about our Christmas weekend, then onto the pictures!  On Christmas Eve, we always go to church and then head over to my parents neighbor, who is also the mother-in-law to my mom’s second cousin (follow that?), to eat, socialize and exchange gifts.  We skipped church this year (bad Christians, I know) because we had to go to the neighbor’s earlier than usual so we could still get Bean home at a reasonable time for bed.  Hubby’s family was also coming that evening, so we had to get home to them as well.  On Christmas Day, we always go to eat at a local restaurant that serves a Christmas Day buffet, and my grandmother kindly pays for everyone’s meal.  We eat yummy food until we’re so stuffed we can’t move, and then usually we would head to her house to exchange gifts.  Another change in plans this year – since my in-laws were here, we couldn’t all go to my grandmother’s place due to space, so everyone came back to our house for the afternoon to open presents.  Bean loved ripping the wrapping paper!  He also wanted to eat it, but everything goes into his mouth these days!  And as for the gifts?  He’s not spoiled much, no sir…  ;)

Here’s a recap of our holiday season through photos:

  Bean’s very first meeting with Santa!  He didn’t cry or get upset at all.  He likes everyone!   :)

Shots from our Christmas card photo shoots:

With some outtakes:

“Mom, what are these things on my feet!?”

Bean’s second meeting with an old-fashioned Santa (The baton group I teach for had a fundraiser night at a local Friendly’s, so we also offered pictures with Santa – so please excuse the crane game in the background, it was a small place with nowhere else to put Santa):

  

 

 

Christmas Day:

Bean’s stocking – it will be personalized with his name, and a few embellishments added, but I didn’t have time to do it before Christmas, so I will have to get it done before it gets put away.  We plan to actually use the letter to Santa pocket when he is older.  We will get him to put his letter in there early, and then we will buy an Elf on the Shelf, and tell him that the Elf will take the letter to Santa when he reports back, that way we can see his letter early, and he knows where it disappeared to.

 

 

 

 

 

This picture does not do justice to the amount of presents there were.

 Bean wearing mommy’s Santa hat.

“Oh boy, I’m rich!”  (This was one of 2 $50 bills.  We think we are going to create an ING savings account for him and deposit this money.)

  Riding his new rocking horse from my aunt.  One of his bigger gifts this year.

The gifts:

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He got a few books, some clothes, the very cute bear paw mittens, and toys consisting of the rocking horse, a V-Tech laptop, V-Tech steering wheel, V-Tech monkey jungle, V-Tech nursery rhyme “book”, ball poppin’ dino, Tumble Fun Park, Crawl Along Snail, an Eeyore rattle (obviously my choice), a stuffed Grover (because Hubby likes him best), his very own baby smart phone, a taggie blanket, some teethers, the bumble bee, a Hess truck and race car, a fire truck ornament, and not shown here is a wooden wagon from my mom.  Along with the $100!  See?  Not really spoiled…   ;)

Hubby and I received restaurant gift cards to Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden/Red Lobster, and Outback.  We also received cash, and a few baby’s first Christmas ornaments.  He received a batman computer game from his brother, the new Zelda Wii game and some underwear from me, a Roku 2 for our bedroom from me and my parents, a programmable thermostat from my parents, and I received a baby bullet system from my in-laws (can’t wait to try it out!), a cell phone case and car charger from my parents, and of course the cell phone itself and Harry Potter DVD collection from Hubby that I got earlier this month.

It was a very nice Christmas, and I’m kind of sad that it’s over.  From here on it’s just dreary, drab winter that lasts way too long.  But I will always remember Bean’s first Christmas!  :)

And here’s my little family (minus the cats, who got a stuffed sushi tray for Christmas):

Hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year!  Bean’s 6 month post coming next – half a year old already!

Wordless Wednesday

Sleepy baby (2 words...)

Holiday Traditions

Third post in the link up series!  This week’s post is about holiday traditions that we have or plan to start. 

1. We always put up the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving day, or at least by the end of the weekend.  This started when Hubby and I lived at the apartment in NJ.  We do use a fake tree, and we didn’t really have the storage space for it there, so my parents would bring it and all the decorations with them on Thanksgiving since that was the only time they would be coming to us before the holiday and would have a way to transport all the stuff there.  So, now we still do that even in our house.

2. I always make a ton of cookies for people.  I usually end up staying up until 4am multiple nights to get them all done.  I don’t think that will be happening this year, but I am having a cookie exchange party with some friends, so maybe we can make that an annual tradition.

3. On Christmas day we always get up, open presents here at home, then meet my family at a restaurant for lunch.  After that, we head to my grandmother’s to exchange gifts there and spend the day with each other.  I’ve never been a fan of eating out on holidays, but this has become our tradition and my grandmother loves it, so it will continue.

4. On Christmas Eve we always go to the early church service, then afterwards go to my parents neighbor who is the mother-in-law to my mom’s cousin (follow that?).  My mom’s cousin and her husband stay there every year at Christmas, since they live across the state.  So, after church we head over there for some food, gift exchanging, and spend time together.  We’re usually there until very late in the evening.  I guess starting this year, we will have to do things earlier now!

5. Last  year Hubby and I drove around looking at other people’s Christmas lights while we drank warm beverages and ate gingerbread man marshmallows.  Bean probably won’t appreciate that very much until at least next year, since he sleeps during car rides a lot yet, but it’s something I would like to continue to do.

6.  Bean isn’t allowed to watch much TV (he does get some TV time though, due to us watching something), but Polar Express is one of my favorite Christmas movies, and Hubby gave me the DVD for Christmas last year, so I’d like to watch that with Bean at least once every year during the season.

That’s all I have for now.  Maybe we’ll start to come up with new traditions as Bean gets older.  I love Christmas season!

Favorite Kitty Pic Friday!

I hope everyone is having a good holiday season so far!  I can't believe Christmas is just a week away already.  Time is flying and I'm not done with everything yet.  And Bean is going to be so spoiled this year!  I know he doesn't even know what's going on yet, but he will be 6 months old and can finally start playing with bigger, more fun toys, so we couldn't help ourselves.  But there will be a Christmas post later for the Christmas link up I've been participating in every Tuesday this month.
Back to my photo choice.  Here is Jasper enjoying some lap time with me.  It doesn't happen often anymore, so he was purring up a storm!  (He looks a little grumpy, but I guess that's just his look.)

Christmas Decorations

Linking up for the second Christmas post with From Mrs. to Mama!  I actually did a post last year with pictures of all my Christmas decorations.  Pretty much nothing has changed except for the addition of a stocking for Bean and a new snowman decoration.  In order to save some time (because I have oh so much to spare to sit at a computer to blog lately!), I’m reposting my post from last year that shows all our decorations.  It takes me quite a while to decorate usually, so this year is definitely interesting with my lack of time.  But I love decorating for Christmas and will continue to put up this many decorations, if not more, as the years go on.  It will be nice when Bean can help with some of it too!   :)  Now, in reading this post, my grandmother had passed away on Dec. 6th, so some of the post is emotional and sentimental about her.  I still miss her dearly, and wish she was here to see Bean’s first Christmas.  But enjoy the pictures of the decorations!:

 

I wanted to share my decorations with you, even though these pictures are from last year.  The decorations are all in the same spots this year, but my house currently looks like a tornado hit it with shopping bags full of gifts, and one ornament tub that still needs to be packed away, so you get to view last year’s pictures of this year’s decorations!

My grandmother made my stocking, probably about 5+ years ago, and I will cherish it always.  As I said, she never had much money to give big, expensive gifts, but I always cherished everything she ever gave me because it came with a lot of thought, and straight from her heart.  Last year’s gift from her was a set of dessert dishes because she noticed I didn’t have any at Thanksgiving, and even though they aren’t fine china or fancy, I love them and they are some of my favorite dishes.  She also gave me an ornament that she personalized for our first year in our new home.  I have to admit that I forgot about the ornament until I pulled it out this year, and it brought tears to my eyes.  It has an up front and center position on the tree this year.

The newest edition to the decorations this year.  Bought this angel at a recent craft show.

 

 

***My preview looks totally screwy, so just in case, here’s a link to the old post:  My Christmas House***

My Christmas List

I’m linking up with From Mrs. to Mama for these posts.  If you don’t already read her blog, check it out!

At first I had no clue what I wanted for Christmas.  I have my little man, and I felt/feel like Christmas should be all about him now.  I really couldn’t even think of anything at first.  But I have now.  I have even received two gifts from Hubby already!  Do I care if I don’t receive everything on my list or any of it at all for that matter?  No.  I never expect Christmas gifts.  I never expect anything from anyone for any occasion.  But if anyone is going to get me anything, these are the items I would like to have:

1. New fancy phone that I can use apps with so I don’t have to steal Hubby’s iPhone anymore.  (Hubby got me the HTC Wildfire S on Black Friday, half off, so now I have a cooler phone, I actually have texting and internet access, and the cell phone bill will be about $12 less per month now that we switched my service to Virgin Mobile.)

2. Newest Harry Potter movie along with the ones I’m missing to complete the set.  (Hubby also got me this.  Found a great deal on Amazon on Black Friday – the entire 8 disc DVD set for $40, free shipping!  Now I have some duplicates, but we would have spend more than that on just the missing movies to complete the set.  I never did get to see the newest one in theaters this year because it was out shortly after I had Bean, and by the time Hubby and I could get out to see it, it went out of theaters that week.)

3. Bigger memory card for my new phone.

4. New CD player to use for baton practice.  My parents got me a nice little one about 2 years ago for Christmas, but it’s not loud enough at all for practices.  My louder one is finally dead.  So I need a new louder one now.

5. New pants/short sleeve pj’s.  I have a couple pairs, but 2 of them are really old, 1 is a hand-me-down from my mom and is actually a little too big, and one pair is too long, and I just never got to hem it.  I have plenty of warm pj’s at the moment, and even short sets, but the in-between sets with pants and short sleeves are a little lacking/off sized.

6. A car charger for my new phone. I am notorious for having a dead phone and forgetting to charge it. I don't think that will happen with this phone, but it would be nice to have a way to top off the battery while on the go.

7. A case for this phone. I tend to drop things a lot. This phone has already seen the floor twice. I need a rubbery case to protect it from myself.

The rest is nothing anyone can purchase for me.  I’d like a night where I wouldn’t have to get up with Bean, but that won’t happen because I wake up anyway and I would still have to pump once overnight since I am still breastfeeding.  But sleep would be nice.  A family friend even got him a onesie that says “All Mommy wants for Christmas is a silent night.”  So true.  I miss undisturbed sleep.  I’d also like more time to get things done.  More time to blog, more time to create and craft things, even just more time to do laundry and clean!  We have so many photos of Bean, and I haven’t gotten many printed yet for photo books and frames.  We even would like to make an appointment with our wedding photographer to do a family photo session (we have a free session from them to use sometime!), and I wanted to do that to be able to have photos for Christmas gifts, but that won’t happen at this point.  So just some time would be nice.  I love spending time with Bean, but I also would like to do things that need to get done, or things just for me.

That’s pretty much my list.  Of course I wish for a happy, healthy family as well!

Favorite Kitty Pic Friday!

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I hope you all have been having better weather than we have the last couple days.  Rain, rain, rain!  Today is supposed to be sunny though, but slightly chilly, so Bean will get to wear his one new fleecy outfit for the first time (if it fits him yet – he’ll be 5 months old on Wednesday, but still wears some 0-3 clothes and some 3-6 are still a tad big on him!)!  I can’t wait to see how cute he looks in it!  Fleecy baby clothes are just too cute.   :)

Well, back to the original star of this post…here is my choice for the week:

Dusty sunbathing by the patio door.  He’s such a pretty kitty!   :)

I hope you all have a good weekend.  We will be preparing the house for Thanksgiving, and hopefully doing some outside prep/clean-up for the winter.  I also hope to buy my chest freezer between today and this weekend, so hopefully we will have that in time for Thanksgiving as well!  I never thought I would get excited about having a chest freezer…  Oh, the life of a domesticated, stay-at-home, breastfeeding mom!

Calling all bloggers!

I have never done this before, but since I don't get to blog as much as I would like to lately, but would like to keep the readers I have as well as get some new traffic to the blog, I'm opening up to guest blog posts. If you are interested, you can write about whatever you want - from recipes, parenting, crafts, TV, etc. I only ask that you don't pick a topic that is too political or controversial, and no major profanities. Sound like something you want to do? E-mail me to let me know, and as soon as I get responses, I can figure out a good posting schedule. Looking forward to hearing from some fellow bloggers!

Favorite Kitty Pic Friday!

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Well, I haven’t done this in a while either!  But here’s a most recent picture that I think is just too funny:

Bean and Jasper!  Bean looks very happy, Jasper not so much.  But he actually stayed there and let Bean lay on him to take the picture!  He makes for such a soft pillow.  ;)

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  We will be going to the Redner’s Family Expo on Sunday, where the twirling group I teach for is performing, and this performance I will actually be the announcer!  Oh boy…I hope they like my voice, because I don’t really like it.  I’m a little nervous, but at least I have cards to read from.  Wish me luck!

Seriously?! Thursday

I haven’t participated in this since before Bean was born, and I can’t do it from the iPhone, so I got him to sleep in his rocker and now I can finally participate this week!

1 – I have a 4 month old!  I can’t believe it!  Now that he’s over being colicky, he’s more fun everyday, and I can’t wait until we get into even more fun times!

2 – The builder of my house has yet again angered me.  My driveway is sinking where it meets the sidewalk.  It took my MIL tripping on the separation and falling face first in the street for them to decide it was time to fix it.  2 years we’ve been waiting for this.  And now?  They came and cut the driveway to remove that section, and left it like that!  First we were arguing with them about re-doing the entire driveway because my car is also creating divots, but they say no to that, and now I have this cut in my driveway and no one has come to do anything with it since.  It snowed, so they couldn’t then, but the temps are warmer now, the snow is melted, so where are they?!

3 – Speaking of snow, it snowed here!  2 days before Halloween, and a good couple of inches too!  Crazy weather.  I never thought we’d have a white Halloween!

4 – Old people need to learn how to drive again.  I was leaving Babies R Us yesterday, did not have a stop sign but the old dude did, and he started to pull out on me and almost hit the side of my car…then he had the nerve to glare and yell at me!  Seriously?!

5 – There are way too many pictures of Bean.  Well, not really.  How can you not take a picture of his cute face everyday?  But seriously, need to find a better solution for storing these digital images and sharing them with family.  We’re running out of room with our current way.

6 – We’re already in November!  Thanksgiving is coming up, my house is a wreck, Christmas is sooner than I’m ready for…I’m at a total loss as to how to handle Christmas gifts for Bean this year now too.  He’ll be 6 months old then (half a year already?!), so he’ll start to be able to play with more toys, but how many do you get?  What’s too much and what’s not enough?  Usually Hubby and I just spend a certain amount on each other, so number of gifts depends on what we buy that fits into that spending amount.  Is that how we handle Bean’s gifts too?

I guess that’s all I have for now.  I am going to try to start doing Favorite Kitty Pic Friday again, but it probably will just be once in a while when I get the chance to sit at the computer and deal with photos.  I hope to get one scheduled for tomorrow though!  I have a few other posts I want to do too, including a photo heavy post of Bean’s first Halloween pictures, but I have to get them off the camera and into the computer yet.

Have a great evening!

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween night! We obviously didn't go trick or treating because Bean is too little for that and we have enough candy for ourselves left over now. But we did go to my grandmother's last night and took some more really fun pictures tonight. I will try to post those ASAP - they are just adorable and funny! As you can see, Bean was a little candy corn, my favorite fall candy! I can't wait to actually take him trick or treating - maybe next year! :)

4 months old!

Wow!  Time is going fast!  Bean is already 4 months old!  He was 4 months old on the 23rd, but we just had his well visit yesterday.  So here are his stats up to now:

Birth:  7 lb. 3.7 oz., 19 in.

2 months:  10 lb. 7 oz., 22.25 in.

4 months:  12 lb. 11 oz., 24.5 in.

He’s gained a total of 5 lb. 7 oz. since birth!  It puts him in the 10th percentile for weight and 25th percentile for length.  We still have a little peanut.  :)

He can now sit up assisted, holds his head very well, puts weight on his legs sometimes when you hold him in a standing position, and is reaching and grabbing at everything to put it straight into his mouth.  He is very “chatty” these days, but not much in the consonant sounds yet.  He hasn’t rolled yet, but the doctor wasn’t concerned.  Tummy time is going a little better – he holds himself up on his elbows and tolerates about 5 minutes now before he gets frustrated and yells at the floor.  No crying and screaming at the floor anymore unless you leave him yelling at it for too long.  Literally yells at the floor.  I wonder if he could talk what words he would be using.  ;)  His sleep has gone downhill though, but we were told what to do to try to get him to sleep better.  This visit required all the same vaccines as last visit, but for some reason, he’s not tolerating them well this time.  He’s had a fever and has been extremely cranky.  He did sleep pretty well last night though!  He’s still eating every two hours, with only a half hour nap between every feeding.  We’re allowed to start him on solids now, so we bought a box of rice cereal to start.  I know some people like to wait until 6 months, but this is our decision as parents, and we have decided to try now.  Well, this weekend anyway, since he was cranky and feverish today.  The fun mess we’re in for with that!  So overall, he is growing well and hitting milestones pretty well also.  He also had his first cold this past week, so that was no fun!  My poor sick baby.   :(

Here are some photo comparisons of each month:

4 weeks old

8 weeks old

 

3 months old

4 months old!

Maybe when I get the chance, I will do a photo heavy post.  We certainly have enough of them to share!  Right now, I must go change what I think is a poopy diaper (you know, because I just changed him right before!), and see if he will take a little snooze while we eat.  Have a great TGIF and weekend!